Close To The Point Of Choice

Question: What does the wisdom of Kabbalah say about the concept of freedom of choice?

Answer: Freedom of choice is the same point that attracts a person to the wisdom of Kabbalah, to determine if he has freedom of choice or not.

If a person has no freedom of choice, he lives quietly, comfortably, maximally keeping himself away from problems for the rest of his life. But if he has freedom of choice, what is that? It is in relation to what? In what framework?

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that, in principle, freedom of choice is related to the behavior of a person. A person in our world must attain a particular state, meaning he must gradually discover his inner potential in the spiritual world, which is unknown to him and is not felt by him for the meantime.

It is possible to discover the spiritual world in two ways: either naturally when life compels us to do this or a person yearns to advance by himself, voluntarily. A duality is created: either a person acts independently or he waits until nature goads him from behind, “with a stick toward happiness.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that all of us move forward driven by nature. But if a person invests effort, he can hasten the process so that it will be successful and pleasant.

Freedom of choice amounts to choosing how to achieve the goal that was predetermined by nature. The goal itself will be achieved in any case: it will be either through freewill or by coercion. Ultimately, a person has no freedom of choice.

Question: In what stage does freedom of choice appear to a person?

Answer: It appears after a person finishes his development on the levels of still, vegetative, and animate and transforms from an ape into an Adam. For thousands of years of evolution, systems began to be developed in which a person could use freedom of choice.

This must appear in a person as a duality: there is a desire that belongs to the next level, the upper world, and the state in which he exists on his lowest level.

Freedom of choice then appears within him: either he develops according to what is called the point in the heart (a desire for the next, higher level), or he remains on his own level.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/25/16